Footsteps (56 page)

That was a letter that Mei received before she and I went and visited the girl in Jepara. It was a long time ago now. But the problem she was addressing was still there: How did one find the way, the path, the right character that would reveal the gateway out of this wild jungle into the modern era?

Mei dived headlong into organizational work. The Jepara girl, despite all the doubts she had lived with, had written much of eternal value in her letters. Dewi Sartika had established her schools. And the Princess of Kasiruta? She was among the first group of Native women to edit a magazine in the Indies.

Some said that women began their life with the wedding bed. The governors-general of the Indies had the opinion that women could be silenced by bringing them to the wedding bed. Princess, it seemed, was following an old saying—without actually doing it—marry, divorce, become a widow, and live as one pleased.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“No, Mas, what is your opinion?”

“Try to learn to decide for yourself.”

“I don’t have enough experience yet.”

“Go and meet Dewi Sartika. You’ll get a lot of material that way.”

No Native woman had ever conducted an interview. She didn’t yet have the courage. Put together a list of questions first, I said. It didn’t take her long to do that. But she still hesitated.

“What will people say? A strange woman arrives at the house of a good family and then begins to ask all sorts of personal questions.”

She was right. There were risks for our family. We had to find another way. We mobilized several of the SDI men to start collecting information indirectly about this much respected and admired figure. What we received couldn’t be used. It was too extreme, exaggerated, no one would believe it all. It was just like with wayang—if it wasn’t amazing and incredible, no one paid it any attention.

The thought that an article based on this material would not satisfy the readers made Princess regret that she wasn’t able to do
it herself. One regret led to another. But the other regret had a different origin—Princess was still not pregnant. I followed her feelings closely, especially when she sat alone, quiet but restless. She always rejected my suggestion that we go for a holiday to Sukabumi. She always had the same excuse—there was work to finish.

To help keep her spirits up, I took her to see Dewi Sartika.

Raden Tumenggung Sastrawinangun, her husband, was not at all a pretentious person, although he did try to be as Sundanese as he could. He didn’t interfere very much at all in the interview.

Toward the end of the interview, Dewi Sartika told of how she wanted to establish a school to further develop the art of weaving in Cicalengka. The local weaving was already famous all over Priangan.

“Why don’t you go ahead and start it, if you have the opportunity and the funds?” asked Princess.

“We are still struggling with the finances.”

“We will help you,” I said.

“Is that true, Meneer?”

“Of course it is,” responded Princess. “Even if we can’t provide all the money, we can provide at least that which is needed most urgently.”

“Thank you very much. The young women need an education. They need to be able to educate their own children in the future as well. They don’t need only to be able to read and write. They need also to be able to work.”

I saw a frown come over Princess’s face when she heard those words, “their own children.” Those words seemed to be targeted at her especially, and she still showed no signs of being pregnant.

We returned home, and Princess didn’t move to start writing up the results of the interview. I had avoided so far speaking about the subject of children at all, but it was she who began.

“We will be helping her to educate other people’s children. We ourselves have not yet been blessed with our own.”

“What is the difference? Children are the same wherever they are.”

She looked at me, trying to work out what my feelings were, then went on: “How much I yearn to give birth to a boy child, like you—handsome, intelligent, and more than that, courageous. Courageous enough too to dare to make mistakes, to dare to be in error. I would hand him over to you every day, and you would
never complain of not having enough time to cuddle him,” she promised, humoring her husband.

“That time will come too.” I spoke those words again for the umpteenth time.

Sometimes she felt she was being humiliated. I had to try every method to calm her down again.

Our marriage seemed to be a happy one to all observers. I too had convinced myself of that. I was happy in this marriage. My wife was devoted to me and that was what was important to a Native man from whatever class and whatever region.

The days went by, yet she had not written one word about Nyi Raden Dewi Sartika. Then came the confrontation. One afternoon we were sitting in the front yard when the Lendersma boy came by. He was dirty as usual but he had a certain intelligence about him.

“Look at that boy! He’s trying to work out a way to get one of those
jeruk
without having to climb the tree.”

She refused to look, but instead let out a sigh of exasperation.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.

She sat there like a statue. I watched her silently. Some inner conversation was taking place. Eventually she could not keep it in anymore. She ended it with an explosion: “If Mas wants a child so much then all I can do is state that I am willing to see Mas marry again. I accept it, Mas.”

“You will have a child.”

“It is not I who decides whether I shall have a child, or whether it will be sooner or later.”

“We haven’t even been married two years yet. Why are you so sensitive about having a child?”

“And isn’t it you who have demanded from me to have the child quickly?”

“I’m sorry. But we don’t want to have an argument, do we?”

It was only then that she raised her face to look at me and whispered:

“You are the man, you must decide.”

“I have no intention of marrying again.”

“I will accept it if you marry again.”

“Why do we have to go on like this?”

“Every time you talk about a child, you mean to tease me. I can’t stand it.”

“Then we won’t talk about it anymore.”

“Sometimes you don’t speak with your mouth but your eyes.”

“You’re tired. You’ve been working too hard. You should rest. You won’t even agree to a holiday in Sukabumi.”

I had suggested several times that she be examined, that perhaps there was something wrong with us. But she always refused, because it was something that was in God’s hands.

Then one day, before going into the office, I took myself to a German doctor to be examined. My heart was pounding with the doubts I had about my own ability to leave behind any seeds that might indeed grow. When he came out of his examination room, all my doubts were confirmed. It was I who was infertile. And it could be forever. Perhaps the doctor was wrong. So I followed in the footsteps of Frischboten and sought out Pengki near the Buitenzorg markets. This time his teacher, writing once again on a little piece of paper, added the uncomforting words: “I am sorry, Tuan, but this time sinse is unable to help you.”

The doctor from the bamboo house, with his lips blue from smoking opium, didn’t take me straight into his examination room. First of all he interviewed me in his broken and hard-to-understand Malay. He examined my eyes. Without excusing himself first, he began to examine my hair. My hair! And then plucked a hair from my leg. This part of the examination went on for a long time, while he continued to ask me all sorts of questions about my past. Finally he did take me into his examination room.

The floor was bare and damp earth. The bamboo walls had holes in them. He ordered me to take off all my clothes and left me lying on a bench, without a mattress, or mat, and with a pillow that was by no means pleasant to look at, let alone to smell. He came back with a young Chinese man.

They started talking excitedly with each other. I couldn’t understand a word.

The young one started massaging the iliopsoas group of muscles. Suddenly: “Do you get backache?”

“Never.”

He examined the front section of my thigh, right up to near the testicles, and then the scrotum, plucking some hairs and examining their roots. He told me to turn over, then examined my backbone. The examination took quite some time. It was only after all this that he told me that I could get dressed.

They didn’t talk to each other again.

They brought me back to the waiting room. The sinse wrote the little note for Pengki.

“Yes, well,” said Pengki, letting out a sigh. “The only thing to do is to pray to Him that Created Life, Tuan.”

I would not say anything about this at home. The matter of a child stopped here. At the very least I would not be bringing forth any creature that I could call my child during these next several years.

Now it was I who was often disturbed. What was I working so hard for if there was to be no child to savor the fruits of my work? What did it mean, this “single people” or “multi-people” nation, if none of my blood was mingling in it?

It was an emptiness for which there was no answer. Limp, empty. A liter of my perspiration every day would not fill this emptiness. A pound of protein and another of minerals and sugar would not produce enough energy to bear this burden. Often as I sat in the stillness of the night I could see in my mind’s eye huge fields of wilting flowers, without new seedlings coming forth. For over a week I did not go up to Bandung.

Hendrik and Mir and their baby came to visit and to see if I was sick. They didn’t stay but went back to Bandung on the last train.

“It’s better not to get pregnant too early, anyway,” said Mir to Princess before they left for the station.

Just a few minutes after they left, someone came into the front yard. He was big, an Indo, and he had four others with him. His face was covered in hair, as if he had fertilized his face every day with manure. He didn’t introduce himself. But as soon as he sat down I recognized him—Robert Suurhof.

“So, what do you want this time?” I got in first.

His eyes popped out.

“Tell him,” said one of his friends.

“Yes, I’ve received your letters,” I continued. “I recognized your handwriting, your
r.
But letters like that don’t deserve any attention.”

“You began it,” he suddenly accused me.

“We began everything together in Wonokromo. When do you want to finish it?”

It was at that time that Princess came out, carrying some papers.

“One of your gangs started it in Pameoungpeuk.”

“We have no gangs. We are not some group of thugs. Our organization has been legalized by the government. If you haven’t forgotten how to read yet, you can check for yourself in the
State Gazette.
”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve been attacking the Indos.”

“Very well. Tell me what your complaints are. I will take them all up with the assistant resident. With the governor-general, if need be.”

“You’ve got a big head. Everything in the Indies is decided by the Indos—good and evil, black and white, what will survive and what will be destroyed, everything.”

“Princess, did you hear what he said?” I said to my wife, who was standing at the door watching our “guests.” She understood the blinks of my eye. She put the papers down on the table and went back inside.

Following in the footsteps of all those who managed big firms, I had taken advantage of my right to own a gun and acquired a Colt revolver. There was an agreement between Princess and me that whoever needed to use it would do so. And Princess understood. In a few moments she returned to the veranda with the revolver in her hand, pulled over a chair, and sat down to watch our guests.

“These gentlemen say they have some business to finish, Princess,” I said, taking the lead.

“What is it they wish to end?” asked my wife.

“Ask them.”

“What business is it that you gentlemen wish to finish?” asked Princess of Robert Suurhof.

Now they all turned to Princess. Their fury had been swallowed up by the shock of her intervention. I stood up and moved away from them.

“Don’t play around with that thing!” Robert Suurhof warned her.

“What is it that you gentlemen wish to end?” Princess repeated her question.

“We can also use those things,” Robert Suurhof warned her.

“What is it that you want to end?” repeated Princess for the
third time. “Do not come into my house without my permission. Finish your visit now or I will shoot without mercy. I will count to three. One…”

The five of them looked at each other.

“Two…”

They stood up.

“Three!” and Princess began shooting.

The explosions shattered the silence. The five of them ran off. Not one was hit. Princess fired some more shots outside the house. They were running as fast as their feet could carry them.

They disappeared from sight. We stood there, still in shock ourselves. Several soldiers from the palace soon arrived, asking what had happened. They did a quick examination of all the rooms. The gun was taken. They left, but gave us a receipt for the gun.

It was several minutes before the shock wore off. We stood there looking at each other like two children lost in the forest.

“You were courageous to shoot, Princess.”

“It is better that they should die than my husband.”

“Where are our guards, the men from Banten?”

“Some went off to get their replacements. The others I sent with the Frischbotens to the station.”

“We will lose the gun.”

“We haven’t lost anything,” she said.

I rubbed her back, and she sat down again. Embracing her around the neck from behind, I whispered to her: “When did you learn to shoot?”

She didn’t answer straightaway. Meanwhile I continued to reflect on my admiration for her. Natives generally were afraid of firearms, even to touch them. And then she told me how back home in Kasiruta all the members of her family, everyone ten years old and above, were instructed by her father to practice shooting, every Sunday afternoon in the forest. No, it wasn’t difficult to get a gun. As long as you had a certificate of good behavior from the police and you had the money, you could easily buy a gun, or even more than one.